At least 13 stabbed in Tel Aviv bus attack

A Palestinian man on a bus in central Tel Aviv stabbed at least 13 people, wounding some of them seriously, before he was chased down, shot and arrested, Israeli police said Wednesday, describing the assault as a "terror attack."

The assault was the latest in a spate of attacks in which Palestinians have used knives, acid and vehicles as weapons in recent months, leaving dead and injured.

Police identified the assailant as a 23-year-old  Palestinian from Tulkarem in the West Bank and said he had entered Israel illegally.

The assailant, who tried to escape the scene on Wednesday, was shot by police and wounded in the leg before being apprehended, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

The attack occurred during the morning rush hour on Wednesday, after the assailant boarded the bus on Begin Road, a major thoroughfare in Tel Aviv.

The assailant began stabbing people, including the driver, then managed to get out of the bus and started to flee.

Officers from a prison service who happened to be nearby and saw the bus swerving out of control and a man running away, gave chase, shot the man in the leg, and subsequently arrested him.

"We believe it was a terror attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said four people were seriously hurt and another five sustained lighter wounds. The stabber was in custody and the police are questioning him, he said.

The stabbing is the latest in a type of "lone-wolf" attacks that have plagued Israel in recent months. About a dozen people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, including five people killed with guns and meat cleavers in a bloody assault on a Jerusalem synagogue. In November, an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death near the Haganah train station in Tel Aviv. The suspect, a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Nablus, was arrested.

Hamas did not claim responsibility but praised Wednesday's attack as "brave and heroic" in a tweet by Izzat Risheq, a Hamas leader residing in Qatar.

The stabbing is a "natural response to the occupation and its terrorist crimes against our people," Risheq said.

Israeli officials say the attacks are incited by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.

Tension between Israelis and Palestinians have been on the rise since the war in Gaza ended in August, 2014, with more than 2,200 Palestinians killed, mostly civilians, and more than 70 Israelis killed, nearly all of them soldiers.

Al Jazeera and wire services